One of Europe's first countries to allow Jews to practice their religion openly may soon pass a law banning centuries-old Jewish and Muslim traditions on the ritual slaughter of animals.
In the Netherlands, an unlikely alliance of an animal rights party and the xenophobic Freedom Party is spearheading support for the ban on kosher and halal slaughter methods that critics say inflict unacceptable suffering on animals.

Wilders (PVV) "Freedom Party" is a bit internally conflicted in this area. The PVV is extreme rightist, anti-immigrant and pro-Israel to an even comical degree, anti-green to a degree that they're an embarrassment to more sophisticated climate "sceptic" rhetoricians. PVV "intellectuals" can be quite funny.

But while anti-human on just about any level, to their credit they're pro-animal rights. One of the first things they demanded to help a democratic minority government to power were 500 animal cops and a minimum sentence for animal mistreatment. This was an idea of Dion Graus.

Pro-animal and anti-human seem not necessarily to conflict. Historical examples abound. And no exception here. This is the same person who severely beat up his 8 months pregnant wife and then tried to strangle her. She had to be hospitalized.

But pragmatic "alliances" between parties with completely irreconcilable ideologies on subjects they agree and overlapping issues in their respective programs are daily business. Animal rights is one such issue. These parties won't move one inch toward each other on the subjects they disagree. The political hostilities don't subside for incidental cooperation.

No, I'm not saying Wilders did any of the sort. Wilders has many flaws, but is pretty much spotless when it comes to the categories of behavior his collaborators routinely engage in.

No, it was Dion Graus (in 2002) who beat his pregnant wife to a pulp, one of the his party collaborators of the first hour (I say collaborators because Wilders is the only member of his party, as he wants to keep absolute control over everything.)

It wasn't a one time incident of violent abuse on his part by any means. He stalked women, engaged (and continues to engage in some dubious financial practices, burdened with conflicts of interest, committed fraud with his resume, threatened to burn the house of his father in law. And he's not the only one accused and/ or convicted of criminal conduct either.

The second man to Wilders, Hero Brinkman beat up a bartender for not wanting to give him any more booze. Almost needless to say he was already too drunk. Then later he once again planted his fist in the face of a press officer. Reportedly he got a warning by Wilders, which is an unusual harsh step to take for a party that opposes any sort of leniency with lawbreakers.

Then a nobody called Arjan Brogt was indeed quickly served off as a candidate for committing fraud, or rather having it exposed that he committed fraud. Then porn king Jim van Bhemmel was exposed to have committed a more seriously bankruptcy fraud. And then Mellony van Hemert lied about having a degree in psychology with a specialty in child abuse on her resume. She might have thought to get away with it, because anybody can call herself a psychologist in the Netherlands, it's not protected. Then Gidi Markuszower carried a gun around in public and was caught at an Israel convention. Illegal possession of arms is a pretty serious crime in the Netherlands. And then Marcial Hernandez headbutted an official of Economic Affairs right after insulting his, the official's, girlfriend.

And then tata.. you have the icing on the cake, a big angry guy called Eric Lucassen, who terrorized his whole neighbourhood in Haarlem, where he lived. I doubt there is an equivalent in the English language for "kankerhoer" (literally: cancer-whore) but that's how he scolded the women there who dared to walk their dogs anywhere near his house or parked their cars or let their kids play there. He threatened a couple with dousing them in hydrochloric acid, mistreated an elderly man so much that he burst into tears while reporting the abuse at the local police station. And get this for a representative of the people of Holland, he repeatedly threatened to piss in peoples mailboxes (in the Netherlands that means in your hallway.) He also raped two girls (17) while employed in the military. He was an instructor there and it turned out in the investigation the military did, within their section they had a custom to trade diplomas for sex.

He remains in the PVV, but he was severely punished. He was relieved of his duties as a spokesman for Neighbourhoods and for Defence, but remains a spokesperson on the issue of Housing.

I don't think it is translatable to US proportions or the world would indeed come to an end.

Thanks for clarifying the issue, as a fellow Dutchman I can concur that you're spot on and quite neutral in your assessment of the situation of the PVV. On a side note, one of the biggest problems for the PVV is to get qualified people to participate in the political party, so far they've only gotten people that are angry, frustrated and incompetent.

OT: I am very pleased with this new law becoming practice, I worked in an animal processing plant for some time, I never saw something that made me cringe. When I saw what happens with "ritual" non-tranquilized slaughtering made me a bit sick, a good example can be found on Pharyngula (seriously disturbing video, FYI) .